The present invention relates as indicated to a marine holding tank and, more particularly, to a holding tank that converts the excrement and water received from a toilet into vapor and ash components.
Toilets are frequently situated in temporary buildings and moving vehicles for the convenience of employees or passengers, and a connection to a sanitary sewer system may well be monetarily impractical or physically impossible. Accordingly, treatment facilities must be provided with such toilets to enable the sewage to be hygienically stored and/or removed. Reference may be had to the Simpson et al. U.S. Pat. No. 2,678,450 which discloses a sewage reception and treatment tank.
Specifically, such patent teaches the separation of excrement and water by centrifugal force developed in a rotating receiving basket, with the excrement being incinerated within the basket and the water being vaporized outside said basket. This arrangement has certain disadvantages such as the possibility of incomplete separation resulting in some of the excrement being incinerated outside the basket, thereby to preclude complete removal of the dried residue.
Accordingly, it is the principal object of the present invention to provide a holding tank in which the excrement and water of the sewage charge are uniformly treated for reduction to vapor and ashes. This reduction of the charge permits the treated residue to be hygienically stored for a period of time and subsequently to be efficiently removed.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a holding tank in which excrement and water are mixed into a liquid-solid mixture and such mixture is heated to convert the same to gas and ashes. The mixing and heating of the liquid-solid mixture simultaneously occur in a receiving pan, the mixture being effected by a rotating impeller positioned in said pan with the heating being accomplished by an electric heating means therebelow.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide electric heating means for the holding tank of the invention selectively having either low or high heating capacity with automatic shut off when the temperature in the holding tank has reached a preselected point. Such temperature is selected to be high enough to evaporate the liquid in the charge and to incinerate the solids of such charge.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a control circuit operative upon manual actuation to complete and hold in the closed condition the heater energizing circuit irrespective of A.C. power interruptions until a preselected temperature has been reached or the control circuit has been manually turned off. This feature of the invention is very important since 115V power from a generator or from a marina source is not always dependable and may be interrupted so that the operating cycle may be discontinued. In such a case, the present invention maintains the energizing circuit in a closed condition for completion of the treatment cycle immediately upon resumption of 115V power.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a control circuit for the heater energizing circuit that may be manually actuated or deactuated for operating or deenergizing one or both of the heater elements, respectively, and that is automatically deactuated when the temperature in the holding tank reaches a preselected temperature.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent as the following description proceeds.
To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends the invention, then, comprises the features hereinafter fully described and particularly pointed out in the claims, the following description and the annexed drawing setting forth in detail a certain illustrative embodiment of the invention, this being indicative, however, of but one of the various ways in which the principle of the invention may be employed.